1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, and a storage medium and, more particularly, to an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, and a storage medium which are suitable in case of performing a prevention of a color deviation or the like in a printer such as a color laser beam printer.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, page printers mainly including a laser beam printer have rapidly been developed. Further, recently, a number of page printers which can output a color image have also been proposed and put into practical use as products. A color laser beam printer forms a full color image by overlaying toner of four colors (Y: yellow, M: magenta, C: cyan, K: black) by a well-known electrophotographing process. Various processes to realize such a full color image have been proposed.
Among them, for example, as shown in FIG. 23, there is an intermediate transfer system such that a toner image is formed from a latent image on a photosensitive drum, the toner image is once transferred onto an intermediate transfer member, and toner images of four colors are overlaid onto the intermediate transfer member, and after that, the toner images of four colors are transferred in a lump onto a paper and fixed, thereby forming an image. According to the intermediate transfer system, since the intermediate transfer member is physically fixed, there is an advantage such that a color deviation of four colors can be prevented easier as compared with the case of a system for transferring the toner images one color by one onto the paper.
There is also an advantage such that since it is sufficient to transfer the toner images onto the paper only once, a path of a paper can be formed in a straight line and the toner images can be easily transferred onto a medium such as OHP, thick paper, or the like which is difficult to be wrapped around the transfer drum.
FIGS. 24A and 24B are diagrams showing the relation between the intermediate transfer member and a paper size in the image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 23. FIG. 24A corresponds to a case where an image is formed onto the whole surface of the intermediate transfer member. FIG. 24B corresponds to a case where an image is formed onto a part of the intermediate transfer member.
As shown in FIGS. 24A and 24B, the image forming method of the intermediate transfer system has a problem such that the intermediate transfer member with the size corresponding to the maximum paper size is necessary. In case of forming an image on a page unit basis, even in case of the printing of any size, the maximum number of print copies per minute cannot be set to be larger than that corresponding to the maximum paper size.